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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23580967">The Balcony</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HDLynn/pseuds/HDLynn'>HDLynn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Favor Series [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Narcos (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Complicated Emotions, F/M, Office Romance, Tension, a baby amount of fluff, cursing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:14:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,585</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23580967</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HDLynn/pseuds/HDLynn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After spending some time getting to know Javier Peña better, he arrives on your doorstep unexpectedly, looking like he's under a dark cloud. You can't help but invite him in.</p><p>Part 2 of The Favor series</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Javier Peña/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Favor Series [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697419</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Balcony</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been about two months since my first date with Javier Peña. We’d gotten piping hot tamales wrapped in banana leaves and perfectly fried and golden patacones from the most amazing street cart. Peña knew his local food, I had to give him that. I just wasn’t sure how he kept so trim. The seller seemed to bandy insults with Javi like old friends, both of them speaking too quickly for my basic knowledge of Spanish to keep up with. I wondered if Javier got food here often or if the man was an informant contact. Possibly both, he worked hard and played hard.</p><p>The movie had been my choice, and I had to pick Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Who wouldn’t have picked Arnold? I could tell Javi was relieved that I hadn’t chosen a “chick flick” but he didn’t say so. He, sometimes, could be a wise man.</p><p>That had become our pattern. The weekend nights he wasn’t already busy we would do two things: generally food in some amazing hole-in-the-wall place, and then it was either a movie or wandering around one of the local parks while we talked. Being with Javi made me feel safe even when we didn’t get back to my apartment until it was quite dark out.</p><p>There was a palpable tension between us when we said goodnight. Just as Javier was awkward with this dating thing, I was awkward with letting him into my apartment. I liked him, I really did. Every little piece about him that he slowly let slip into my grasp was treasured in my heart and reciprocate in kind.</p><p>God, I felt like I was sixteen again and just figuring out how to date. That or I had never truly figured it out. I wanted to jump the man some nights, the way his brown eyes twinkled when I managed to say something witty, causing pleasure to curl in my stomach. Other evenings, I felt as fragile as glass, that if he touched me for too long I would shatter and wouldn’t be able to put myself back together whole again.</p><p>Javi seemed to pick up on that, but didn’t push me on it as we moved around one another in a strange sort of dance. So, at the end of our ventures, he would leave me at the step of my apartment building with a quick peck on the lips before heading off to his own place. It left me aching for more and yet still not ready to invite him up.</p><p>~*~</p><p>It was a Wednesday night and my AC had broken down. It was so hot that, after getting home from work, I resorted to trying to nap on the tile floor of the bathroom. It wasn’t working out too well, tile floors did not make for a comfortable bed. But it was cool and I knew my bed would just trap the heat of my body, making me more miserable, so I prayed that I would pass out for a little while.</p><p>Was it even worth getting up to make dinner? I thought about what I had in my fridge and the cupboard. Why did I have so many things that needed to be cooked and heated up? Maybe some cereal with milk was in order, that would be cool, at least. Yes, I was going to have cereal for dinner. I then proceeded to not make a move to get up, moving was too hard at the moment. I’d just wait until I was more hungry.</p><p>I was to the point of fitful snoozing when I heard a knock at my door. I groaned internally, I’d have to peel myself from the floor now.</p><p>Hearing the knock on the door again, I cataloged what I was wearing as I got up. Striped cotton sleep shorts and a sports bra. I grabbed a mostly clean t-shirt from my needed-to-be-washed pile and pulled it on as I padded barefoot to the door.</p><p>I left the chain in place as I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door a crack to see who it was. My little peephole in the door wasn’t worth shit.</p><p>“Javi!” I exclaimed, not even trying to keep the surprise from my voice. He had been traveling outside of Bogotá doing DEA work the past few weeks, I hadn’t seen him much. He had been rather cagy about work, as well, wanting to talk about anything else when he was able to see me at my desk. Kathy would glare at him but allowed him in our department’s offices for the time being since he was “behaving himself”.</p><p>Javier murmured a greeting, his face a contained storm, his lips pressed tight and his brown eyes swimming with an emotion I hadn’t seen on him before. He took in my haphazard appearance and hesitated, looking as if he was about to bolt down the hallway.</p><p>“Javi, hold on, let me open the door.” I rushed to say as I closed the door to undo the chain.</p><p>Opening it up properly, I was hit with a sudden wave of relief that he was still standing there.</p><p>“Hey,” he said, still stormy but now a bit sheepish as he tucked his yellow-tinted avatars into the unbuttoned middle of his shirt. So, he had been contemplating leaving.</p><p>I could also see that he was still dressed in his normal getup for when he worked out of the office: sensible shoes for any possible on-foot chases, a currently sweat-drenched button-up in a blue-gray color, and jeans that I knew he always had his government-issued gun tucked into the back of. How the man wasn’t instantly combusting from the heat, I didn’t know.</p><p>“Hey, you want to come in? Talk?” I offered, the door wide open now. “I don’t currently have AC, but I have some cold floor tiles?”</p><p>He huffed out a short laugh at that despite himself. “Yeah, that would be…nice.”</p><p>We ended up sitting out on the tile-covered balcony, the reason I had gone with this apartment really. On a night like tonight, we could at least pretend there was a cool breeze trying to chase away the stagnant heat.</p><p>“I…” Javi started to speak, but trailed off. He looked so damn lost and exhausted, his hands fiddling with the lighter he had pulled absentmindedly from his pocket.</p><p>“Hold that thought,” I said, an idea coming to me. Perhaps it was silly, but I knew it would have helped me if I was looking like that.</p><p>I hopped up and went over to the freezer, the rush of cold was amazing on my skin. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought to stick my head in here sooner. Oh, that's right, my brain had melted out onto the bathroom floor.</p><p>Peering around the corner of the open freezer door back at Javi, I displayed the variety of the cheap freezer pops I had on offer.</p><p>“Got a favorite color?”</p><p>I saw his lip quirk the slightest bit and his shoulder relax just a hair. It wasn’t much, but I’d take it.</p><p>“Green,” he said before quickly adding, “please.”</p><p>I tore off a green one and a blue one for me from the pack and reluctantly closed the freezer door. My glasses fogged slightly at the wild changes in temperature, the heat seeping back into my flesh as the frozen treats instantly started to grow condensation before I could even cut off the tops.</p><p>I went back over and offered him the green one as I settled back down onto the balcony with him again. We relaxed into a more comfortable silence, crunching on the icy treats that left sickly sweetness on our tongues and dripped cold water on our legs.</p><p>Javier’s thoughts were loud in the quiet, but I could wait until he was ready to talk. The sky turned shades of deep peach, orange, and then to dark blues with the setting of the sun, the brightest stars just starting to punch through the firmament.</p><p>“I fucked up…I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be in Columbia,” Javier stated bluntly as a flock of tiny birds amassed on the phone lines across from us before taking off again as one.</p><p>I gripped the now-empty plastic tube tightly in my hand, unsure how to respond. My heart clenched in my chest at the thought of him leaving me behind when the thing we had was so new, unsure, untested.</p><p>“It depends on how things go, but I could be gone next week or tomorrow or it might still all blow over. I don’t have a fucking clue.” He continued, sounding more frustrated as he went on. “Every fucking choice I make is just turning to shit!”</p><p>He had resorted to tightly twisting his empty wrapper — twist, untwist, twist — over and over again.</p><p>“Javi, all you can do is make the best choice possible at the time,” I said gently, not thinking as I placed a hand on his knee. “If you mess up, you can learn from it.”</p><p>“Why,” he whispered, his voice raw, “How? How can you just accept all this shit I can’t even tell you about?”</p><p>“Because I care about you, Javier, you matter to me…you matter a lot.”</p><p><br/>He looked taken aback for a moment before his eyes went soft. He looked at me so intently, I flushed and looked away. I suddenly felt I had played cards I didn’t even know I had.</p><p>I looked back when he whispered my name.</p><p>“Can I kiss you?” he asked.</p><p>“Yes,” I breathed out.</p><p>His hand reached out and cupped my cheek, his thumb brushing a strand of hair I hadn’t noticed that was stuck to my skin. I closed my eyes as he bent in closer. This time, he tasted of sugar and artificial lime, the kiss soft and lazy.</p><p>Javi pulled me in closer so that our thighs touched. I felt the rough denim of his jeans on my skin that wasn’t covered by the shorts. This was…different than that first night when he had assumed I was going to be a quick lay in exchange for a favor. The way his lips slanted on mine, how he held my face in his large hand, it felt like he was trying to memorize me.</p><p>It confused me when he was the first one to pull away, a melancholic look on his face.</p><p>“I have to go, I wasn’t intending to stay this long…” he said, before chuckling. “Steve’s going to have my ass for being late.”</p><p>“That does seem to keep happening,” I said, not able to keep from smirking as I remembered that one Friday in the office. “You DEA boys working an angle this late?”</p><p>“The cartel never sleeps,” Javi said, his tone short and his eyes storming over again. It was like a wall slide back up between us, a wall I hadn’t noticed come down until I was suddenly denied access again.</p><p>“Well…I know you have Steve watching your back but…please be careful,” I whispered. I knew I looked hurt at his curt tone, I was too raw and open from his kiss to try and hide it.</p><p>The silence stretched back out between us until Javi let out a sigh and running a hair through his hair.</p><p>“Fuck, sorry, don’t mind me. I’m shit at this,” he said, waving his hand to space between us.</p><p>I raised a bemused eyebrow at that, my face clearly speaking for me. It said ‘no shit, Sherlock’.</p><p>“I mean it, stay safe Javi.” I said before continuing on, “and if you need another ice pop, to talk, you know where I live. I’ll always have green ones for you, they’re not my favorite.”</p><p>He thawed for a moment again, brushing the same unruly piece of hair back behind my ear.</p><p>“I’ll do my best, and…I’d like that.”</p><p>As I walked him out of my apartment, he seemed a little less lost than when he had been when he got here. That heartened me. He murmured goodnight as he stood close and kissed me on the cheek, his mustache tickling my skin. It left me more breathless and confused in that moment as he walked down the hallway than after any of his other kisses.</p><p>~*~</p><p>Over the next two weeks, I would hear from Javi every couple days. He still seemed tired and stressed, but also to have a purpose to chase right now. I was left to draw my own conclusions, but I figured it had something to do with whatever he had been alluding to when he had come over.</p><p>It was mid-afternoon at work when my desk phone rang. I hardly ever got calls, unless there was something wrong. I looked at Natalie and I pointed to the phone as it rang a second time, silently asking if she knew anything about it. She shrugged, just as perplexed as me, so I picked up the phone.</p><p>“Hello, notary’s desk speaking,” I lilted in my customer service voice, the work script falling easily off my tongue.</p><p>“Hey,” came Javi’s deep tone on the receiver. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt you at work…I just…I just had to call.”</p><p>He sounded off, upset.</p><p>I immediately dropped my higher pitched tone, “It’s fine, Javi, I’m glad you did. Is something wrong?”</p><p>There was a long pause on his end. I wish I could see him, not knowing made me worry.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m at the airport…they’re sending me back stateside.” Javi said before continuing. “You’ll probably hear about it in the office shortly, but I had to tell you myself. Fuck, it’ll probably be all over the Miami Herald before I even land.”</p><p><br/>I was thunderstruck. He had warned me this might happen but I hadn’t really let myself consider it was actually possible. Those DEA boys seemed to have the devil’s own luck, so why would this time have been any different?</p><p>“Oh,” was all I could say at first. The breath was knocked out of me even as my head filled with a hundred questions. What had gone wrong? When would he be back? Would he be back? But what came out was, “Can I see you before you go? When is your flight?”</p><p>Even as I asked, I could hear a boarding call announcement filter through the phone. I knew then I wasn’t going to be able to see him.</p><p>“Shit, is it ok? Can I call you?” Javi asked, suddenly rushed, the words spilling out of him like choppy water. “My flight is boarding now, but can I call you when I land in Miami?”</p><p>“Yes, yes of course!” I choked out, emotion welling in my throat while my hand clutched the phone’s spiral cord.</p><p>I heard him sigh with relief and that small sound heartened me more then I could express.</p><p>“Javi, you have a safe flight, okay,” I said, trying to not get emotional and failing spectacularly in the tears department. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I knew it was Natalie, silent but supporting.</p><p>“Will do, I’ll call you soon.”</p><p>We said awkward goodbyes, neither of us sure where this left us. If there was truly an us. What did just a handful of dates and some kisses even mean, anyway? But that wasn’t a truly fair question for I knew they had meant a lot to me.</p><p><br/>~*~*~</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You can also find my fics on tumblr at hdlynnslibrary</p></blockquote></div></div>
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